Free Christmas Maths Questions for KS2 (with Answers)

The last few weeks of the autumn term are hard work. Children are excited, the hall is booked for rehearsals and you still need a maths lesson that actually covers something. Here are 21 Christmas maths questions for KS2, split into three levels so the whole class can work on the same theme at the right level. Every answer has the working, so you can mark them quickly or let children check their own.

Bronze: Year 3 to Year 4

Skills: adding and subtracting 3-digit numbers, times tables, dividing, a fraction of an amount, multiplying by 10, time in minutes.

1. The elves wrapped 456 presents on Monday and 378 presents on Tuesday. How many presents did they wrap altogether?
2. Santa's sleigh holds 900 parcels. 365 parcels are already loaded. How many more parcels will fit?
3. Each reindeer eats 8 carrots before take-off. How many carrots do 9 reindeer eat?
4. 96 candy canes are shared equally between 4 stockings. How many candy canes go in each stocking?
5. There are 120 elves in the workshop. A quarter of them work the night shift. How many elves work at night?
6. A gingerbread house is 23 cm tall. The giant one in the town square is 10 times taller. How tall is the giant one?
7. The workshop door was locked at 7:45 pm. The bells were found missing at 9:20 pm. How many minutes was that?

Silver: Year 5

Skills: long multiplication, remainders, percentages, negative numbers, Roman numerals, area, metres to centimetres.

1. Each sack holds 48 presents. How many presents are in 37 sacks?
2. 247 candy canes are packed into boxes of 8. How many boxes can be filled completely?
3. 25% of the 360 elves are on holiday. How many elves are on holiday?
4. At midnight it was −14°C. By noon the temperature had risen by 23 degrees. What was the temperature at noon?
5. The workshop clock shows the year in Roman numerals: CDXLVII. Write it as an ordinary number.
6. A sheet of wrapping paper is a rectangle 23 cm long and 14 cm wide. What is its area?
7. The new sleigh rope is 1.85 m long. How long is that in centimetres?

Gold: Year 6

Skills: order of operations, ratio, percentage discounts, simple algebra, the mean, area of a triangle, long division.

1. Work out: 6 + 4 × 25 − 18 ÷ 3
2. Red and green baubles are in the ratio 3 : 5. There are 120 baubles. How many are green?
3. A toy train costs £80. In the sale it has 35% off. What is the sale price?
4. 3n + 17 = 158. What is n?
5. Five reindeer pulled 18, 24, 21, 30 and 27 sacks. What is the mean number of sacks?
6. A triangular flag has a base of 26 cm and a perpendicular height of 14 cm. What is its area?
7. The elves share 7,344 jingle bells equally between 24 sleighs. How many bells does each sleigh get?

Answers and working

Bronze: 1) 456 + 378 = 834. 2) 900 − 365 = 535. 3) 9 × 8 = 72. 4) 96 ÷ 4 = 24. 5) 120 ÷ 4 = 30. 6) 23 × 10 = 230 cm. 7) 7:45 to 8:00 is 15 minutes, 8:00 to 9:00 is 60, 9:00 to 9:20 is 20, so 95 minutes.

Silver: 1) 48 × 37 = 1,440 + 336 = 1,776. 2) 247 ÷ 8 = 30 remainder 7, so 30 full boxes. 3) 25% is a quarter: 360 ÷ 4 = 90. 4) −14 + 23 = 9°C. 5) CD = 400, XL = 40, VII = 7, so 447. 6) 23 × 14 = 322 cm². 7) 1.85 × 100 = 185 cm.

Gold: 1) Multiply and divide first: 4 × 25 = 100 and 18 ÷ 3 = 6, then 6 + 100 − 6 = 100. 2) 3 + 5 = 8 parts, 120 ÷ 8 = 15, green = 5 × 15 = 75. 3) 35% of £80 = £28, so £80 − £28 = £52. 4) 3n = 141, n = 47. 5) The total is 120, and 120 ÷ 5 = 24. 6) 26 × 14 ÷ 2 = 182 cm². 7) 7,344 ÷ 24 = 306.

5 easy ways to use them in a Christmas maths lesson

1. Three tables, one theme. Put each level on a different table and let children choose (or nudge them) to the right one. Everyone works on Christmas maths, but at their own level.
2. Advent countdown. Use one question a day as a morning starter from 1 December. Twenty-one questions take you almost to the end of term.
3. Find the mistake. Write one answer on the board with a deliberate error (try 6 + 4 × 25 − 18 ÷ 3 = 244) and ask children to explain what went wrong.
4. Write your own. After solving a level, children write a Christmas question of their own using the same skill and swap with a partner.
5. Relay race. Teams send one runner to collect a question, solve it together, then bring back the answer for the next one. The first team to finish all seven wins.

Turn it into a whodunnit

These questions come from our Christmas Maths Mystery, where they work as clues. Santa's golden sleigh bells have gone missing, eight North Pole workers are suspects, and each correct answer clears one of them. Get every answer right and only the thief is left. A wrong answer leaves the wrong suspect standing, so the mystery marks itself. There's a different thief at each level, so groups can't copy.